Led by the priestess Filia, Lina, Gourry, Amelia,
Zelgadis and Xellos arrive at the Temple of the Fire Dragons. But before they can learn more about the
prophecy which involves them saving the world, The Slayers find themselves
caught up in an epic three way battle between themselves, Dragons and Monsters,
one of whom has a major grudge against Lina herself. New alliances are formed while others are
betrayed and dark intentions are revealed.
Still, if it leads to the end of the world, youd better bet Lina Inverse
and The Slayers will stand against it…even if they have to fight an entire new
world in order to save it.
Well things sure got complicated fast. That shouldn’t surprise me for a day in the
life of Lina Inverse. One thing was made
clear though, this is going to be the most intricate battle The Slayers have
ever fought. Bad guys are playing each
other. The wise men who should be the
good guys aren’t so noble. The biggest
surprise of all? One of the bad guys
might have one of the best backstories, and therefore motivations, of any
Slayers villain yet. That alone can
excite me more than some of the noticeable shortcomings still plaguing Slayers
Try.
Well as much as I complained about not giving Lina and
company a chance to explore the new continent before the main plot kicked in, I
was apparently heard and this week sought to correct that. And what better way to kick things off than
for The Slayers to engage Valgaavs men on a desert stone island that’s also a
train to Filia’s home temple. It was
definitely one of the more creative battles the series has done so far. Though it was hampered once again by
Filia…who wouldn’t GIVE IT A REST WITH ALL OF HER COMPLAINING!!! For fraks sake, I mean ok she does side with
Lina during an important moment we’ll get to in a sec. But even that cant help her recover in my
book. I mean come on. By now she should know how Lina and The
Slayers do things. No amount of crying
or tea drinking or smacking them with a spiky mace is going to change that.
When we did get to the Fire Dragon Temple, things picked
up a bit. We got some good amusement
seeing Lina take charge of the Golden Dragons to help her try and fix the
temple they wrecked when the train crashed into it (Lina Inverse always knows
how to make an entrance). At first, the
Elders of the Temple seemed ok, or at least they weren’t as prone to freaking
out over Lina’s atrocities like Filia.
And then they decided to just give the Sword of Light to Almace so long
as he did whatever he wanted to do on another plane of existence…wow. It’s a good thing Lina and her friends have
come here to challenge this “for the greater good” mentality cause right now,
Lina, Gourry, Zel, Amelia and Xellos are the only likeable people on this
continent.
Actually, let me amend that last bit. Valgaav (and his minions as well) are on the
likeable side too. Valgaavs backstory,
what little we saw, was enough to give him some sympathy points. He’s a dragon who became a monster following
a betrayal by another breed of Dragon (presumably the Golden Dragons). His salvation? Gaav the Demon Dragon King, who slayed and
resurrected Valgaav with a new name (his name was Val…Gaav just tacked his name
onto the end it’s clever but an obvious connection I should have spotted). And now Lina’s taken away a man Valgaav owes
everything too. Of course, I don’t want
to see Lina or any of the others die. I
just like that Valgaav has some decent motivation for a Slayers villain. And seeing how her people were ready to sell
out another world to darkness to save their own skins, I wonder if Filia will
come to understand Valgaavs pain in the coming episodes. All of these revelations were followed up by
an intense battle against Valgaav and his former partner, Almace. It was spectacular for sure. However, the animation for Slayers Try hasn’t
been as good as Slayers Next since the season premiere. The animation of Slayers Next was miles above
Season One. Slayers Try just feels like
a step above Season One, more stiff than fluid.
Maybe theyre saving money for the finale or another, possibly bigger battle? No matter what, Slayers can do better.
We ended things with the part of another side story that
saw The Slayers splitting up to investigate two cities holding magical
vessels. The first of this two part
story was a little slow to get going and it wasn’t until the young lovers of
the two waring nations roped the two teams into their plans to unite their
homes that things got fun again. Even
better, Valgaav’s men seem determined to get revenge for Lina and Xellos
injuring their master from the last battle.
I say better, that should take away from the fact that this could be a
stand alone breather…but oddly enough im ready to see where this all goes.
Slayers Try made things exciting this week and laid more
seeds for payoff that’s sure to come later in the season. Valgaav shows great promise as a villain and
it’s always inspiring when Lina, Gourry, Zel and Amelia stand up for their
beliefs and smack talk anyone who wants to ruin the world for their own ends. Now if only the animation would step up its
game and Filia would…well just do a complete 180 of her character (or just be
replaced by Martina…hell I almost want to say id take Sylphiel at this point
but I don’t want to hear her poor voice work again). But hey, improvement is improvement. Let’s see if Slayers Try can keep it up next
week.
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